Music missing from "Millennium" Season 2?

Bill GrandPre · 09-14-2005, 05:55 PM

I found the following quote on the "This Is Who We Are" Millennium message board:

Quote:

Hi, all. This is my first post. Anyway, I had a question:

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but isn't there supposed to be opera music playing while the Old Man is stabbed to death? On my DVD copy, there's no music at all. Just wondering . . .

My response:

Quote:

Looks like you're onto something. I never saw any of the "Millennium" episodes when they aired (I was introduced to them on DVD) so I never noticed this, but I did find the following quote on the internet:

Quote:

the episode "Roosters" brought us the violent death of the Old Man to the tune of Wagner's prelude to "Parsifal" in a truly stunning sequence.

.

I went back and checked my DVD and sure enough, there is a decidedly noticeable lack of music when the Old Man is murdered, there isn't any Mark Snow score or the Wagner music that should be there. Music removal or replacement is not uncommon when TV shows are released on DVD but it's usually for legal reasons. Wagner's music is not only in the public domain (meaning it's free for anyone to use) it's also featured earlier in the episode on that very DVD. This looks like a mistake Fox made. Hopefully they'll offer replacements when this is brought to their attention. I'm gonna post this on some DVD forums and I'll report back here if I find an e-mail address or phone number we can call in hopes of getting Fox to issue a corrected version.

So, does anyone know how to get the ball rolling on trying to get Fox to correct this mistake? As I said above, this can't be a rights issue because the music is public domain and appears elsewhere in the episode.

TravisR · 09-14-2005, 06:38 PM

I've seen it in original network airing and I remember it being silent. I'm saying I'm 99% (but not 100%) sure that it's silent. The sequence's use of silence sticks out in my mind for being, well, silent.

Wasn't the Wagner tune used when they 'avenge' the Old Man's murder in Roosters?

As you say, why wouldn't they use free music when they spent the money to license other songs? Plus, I'm sure someone would have caught that by now since S2 is the most beloved Millennium season ever.

Mike Graham · 09-14-2005, 06:43 PM

I distinctly remember the lack of a score during the attack on the Old Man, so there isn't anything missing from the set...

Bill GrandPre · 09-14-2005, 09:55 PM

Yeah, I'm not sure myself. Like I said, I didn't see the episodes when they originally aired and I did put a question mark in the thread title, but here's that scene from a transcript of the episode:

Quote:

As Wagner's MUSIC continues to play ethereally... the door handle twists open...
and the door opens slowly... finally revealing the black form of Helmut Gunsche.

Gunsche carefully treads down the steps. He eventually reaches the bottom
without making a sound. He silently moves towards the Old Man's sleeping bag...

He unsheaths a deadly blade, barbed and twisted for efficiency and pain. He
reaches the Old Man, kneeling over him quietly. He lifts the knife...

... and suddenly the Old Man turns, wiedling a knife of his own! He thrusts at
Gunsche, but the German grabs the blade - which slices into his hand. Blood
flows down the blade...

Gunsche thrusts powerfully with his own knife! The Old Man grabs the attacking
hand by the wrist. Slightly weakened by the blade in his palm, Gunsche slides
his hand out of the knife.

The Old Man strikes again, but now Gunsche easily grabs the Old Man's hand. Both
strain for control.

As the Old Man struggles... white light pours across his face. The Old Man looks
and sees a featureless angelic vision across the basement - the exact same one
Lara saw. The angelic light intensifies, brighter and brighter...

Gunsche plunges his knife into the Old Man, with viciousness in his eyes. The
Old Man freezes in great pain, but doesn't give Gunsche the satisfaction of
hearing him scream...

Gunsche is angered by this. He lifts his knife and thrusts it again and again
into the Old Man until the Group leader goes limp. Dead.

The German assassin kneels before the Old Man, as Wagner's MUSIC continues.

This isn't a shooting script, it's a transcript by Dan Owen.

TravisR · 09-14-2005, 10:14 PM

Hmm. Like I said, I'm not 100% but it just seems bizarre that 1. Fox would replace free music or 2. it would have taken over eight months for someone to notice that they did.

Although a counterpoint to my argument would be that (and correct me if I'm wrong) Dan Owen was one of the guys who wrote the Virtual Season Four of Millennium. Thus it seems like he'd be a pretty good authority on the series.

I have the tapes of the original network broadcasts (and the FX broadcasts too) but they are BURIED somewhere in my house. I'll have to dig them out or hope that someone else has them and can check and save me the trouble of locating them.

**HTF Ads**

Bill GrandPre · 09-15-2005, 01:39 AM

There are a lot of things you don't notice when you're going through a TV season on DVD at a fast pace (I believe I watched my copy of Season 2 in a matter of 4 or 5 days) but there's definitely something amiss when you go back and watch that DVD knowing that music may be missing. As I mentioned earlier, it's very unusual that there's no music whatsoever in such a dramatic scene, and the most telling sign is that there's a shot where the camera tilts down and hangs on the tape player for a beat and there is no music on the soundtrack whatsoever. As far as I'm concerned, all signs point to missing music. If this does turn out to be missing music, I have to believe that it's a flat-out mistake. It occured to me that the actual performance of "Parsifal" may be a copyrighted work but I really doubt Fox would completely remove it without replacing it with any one of the many public domain performance of it that they would undoubtedly have access to. Wikipedia lists the following noteworthy recordings:

Quote:

Hans Knappertsbusch conducting the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra with Wolfgang Windgassen, Ludwig Weber, George London and Martha Modl, 1951 (Teldec, mono)
Hans Knappertsbusch conducting the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra with Jess Thomas, Hans Hotter, George London and Irene Dalis, 1962 (Philips, stereo)
Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with Peter Hofmann, Kurt Moll, Jose van Dam and Dunja Vejzovic, 1981 (Deutsche Grammophon, stereo)
Daniel Barenboim conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra with Siegfreid Jerusalem, Jose van Dam, Matthias Holle, Waltraud Meier, 1991 (Teldec, stereo)

I know practically nothing about classical music but I figure Fox would have at least replaced it with one of these (or even some cheesy public domain version from some no-name group of musicians who recorded it for some stock library) and 99.999% of people wouldn't have noticed the difference, I mean, look how long it took for people to notice that it was gone in the first place.

David_Blackwell · 09-15-2005, 10:06 PM

No, I think the original airing didn't have the music (I watched Owls and Roosters many times before they hit DVD). The audio tape stopped and then the Old Man was attacked.

Bill GrandPre · 09-15-2005, 11:11 PM

Somebody's gotta be able to produce a tape. Until then, I can't dismiss with what the transcript says, not to mention this:

Quote:

the episode "Roosters" brought us the violent death of the Old Man to the tune of Wagner's prelude to "Parsifal" in a truly stunning sequence.

and the person who thought it should be there in the first place. On top of all that, the inclusion of the shot of the tape recorder with no music playing is downright bizarre. Having never seen the episode when it aired on television I am in absolutely no position to say who's right or wrong, but I believe the evidence that the music was once in that scene warrants some further investigation. I have googled pretty much every combination of "Parsifal", "Wagner", "Roosters" and "Millennium" you could think of. All the evidence that the music played during the actual death sequence is here in this thread.

Michael Sliger · 09-15-2005, 11:46 PM

My original broadcast VHS tape copy is long gone, but I still have an unedited syndication copy of "Roosters" in my possession. The audio track there is identical to the one on the DVD. The Wagner music becomes inaudible as Lara walks up the steps. As the camera pans down to the tape recorder, you just hear a hum suggesting that the tape is rewinding or is playing a blank portion of the tape. The only music heard during the entire death scene is a Mark Snow swell when the angel appears. I can't confirm that the episode was shown on Fox that way, but it seems likely.